Restless Cobalt

The Second Night Part One

No luck, it seemed. She was lying awake. Wis and Tis had fallen asleep quickly. Now Bristle wasn't sure how long it had been. The light filtering through the cracked door grew dimmer.

She just couldn't have another day like the one that just passed, feeling like that. Why couldn't she just fall asleep at the proper time. Why, when she went to bed, did she feel tense? She couldn't describe this feeling. She knew she missed the distraction of conversation. She was in her nice warm bed with a soft pillow, yet comfort was impossible.

Why was she having this problem? Why was this causing her so much difficulty?

It was one thing to be thought of as silly and ridiculous. Plenty of smart people had that quality. But to be thought of as an idiot? One who was so dumb she couldn't take care of herself? What was endearing about that? Being silly was fun. Uselessness, however...

It was weird. Maybe she was self conscious. After all, when they last went to Eckelby last summer, some kid they had met made a comment about her hair. At least, she thought they did. She couldn't remember who. She couldn't remember if it was even that mean. She had been eating meringue pie at the time; that had been far more interesting. It was a good meringue pie. Orange meringue pie. There had also been lemon meringue pie, which had been Great Grandma's favourite. Had a little bit of that, for the occasion. She never had pie like that before, so that made it more fun. Besides... she had felt a strong desire to try new things, much stronger than ever before. She couldn't explain it.

After that, Tis had made some sort of retort. Bristle wished she could have remembered exactly what it was; it had made her laugh. It had something to do with spiders. On a more appropriate occasion, she'd have given him five. Also, they might not have been sitting next to each other; Bristle wasn't sure. Often, Wis sat between them – she said she found it more pleasant.

To make up for the lack of high fives, Bristle had offered him some meringue pie, but he had refused. He didn't like it much.

The fact that he had responded with his own wisecrack probably meant the original comment was a bit mean at the very least.

By Bristle's recollection, the incident never came to the attention of the adults. Ma and Pa wouldn't have minded, Bristle was sure. The matter never escalated beyond a few barbs, and Tis was defending one of his siblings; their parents tended to look much more favourably on that. That was how it usually went with fights and arguments.

Additionally, there were no further incidents. Probably not so much because what Tis had said but from the look on his face. It was not an expression that she saw often, so it was memorable every time he wore it. It was decidedly chilly; he was certainly in no mood for that nonsense. Kinda reminded her of Pa, when somebody went out of their way to anger him. Like the time that man called Ma's illustrations "infantile" at that charity event.

Because they were fleeting, Bristle couldn't properly tell, but she could have sworn that Wis directed a few cold glares of her own at the kid who'd made the original offending remarks. That stuck out in Bristle's memory, too.

Kind of an unpleasant memory of an unpleasant occasion. Not great for her thoughts to be stuck there.

Anyway, getting back on track, why was she bothered about being seen as dumb and helpless? She couldn't remember it being said to her, not by Ma, Pa, Wis, Tis, Nana, Pop, Auntie Bernadette, anyone in their extended family – nobody. At least with the hair thing she could attach to an experience.

Tis said having an experience to attach things to was a great reassurance. Like a problem would come up and he'd remember when he'd dealt with it before, so he knew he had things under control and knew the solution. He called that experience an "anchor." He liked that word.